Emerging Markets Update - InFocus: South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana & Africa-wide Outlook

A study produced by African Union is predicting Africa’s oil producing nations to be the worst hit in terms of revenues with Nigeria and Angola losing up to $65bn of income | The study also suggests that 20 million jobs are at risk across the continent as economies shrink in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19.

South Africa Following Fitch’s decision to cut South Africa’s credit rating further into junk status, the Rand set a new record versus the U.S. dollar trading at 19.3446 yesterday before recovering almost 5% on positive global sentiment | The state owned power utility Eskom is expecting a $156m hit to revenue during the country’s three week lockdown period | Meanwhile, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has advised in its Monetary Policy review that the economy may shrink 4%.

Nigeria

The West African nation has requested loans totalling $6.9bn to combat the impact of COVID-19 with the World Bank, IMF and AfDB all involved.

Ghana

The Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has called for China to do more to help ease the debt burden as African economies struggle as a result of the pandemic | Mr Ofori-Atta stated ‘African debt to China is $145bn or so, over $8bn of payments is required this year so that needs to be looked at’. This follows his previous comments about a 1.5% shrinkage of the Ghanaian economy.

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None of the information in this article is, nor should be construed as financial advice. All foreign exchange transactions involve risk and you should always seek your own independent financial advice before entering into any foreign exchange transaction.